The Justice Department has ordered the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to suspend most searches of passengers at airports and other mass transit

“OIG Investigators found that the DEA paid one airline employee tens of thousands of dollars over the past several years in proceeds from cash seized as a result of their tips. However, the vast majority of those airport seizures aren’t accompanied by criminal prosecutions. This has led to years of complaints from civil liberties groups that the DEA is abusing civil asset forfeiture—a practice that allows police to seize cash and other property suspected of being connected to criminal activity such as drug trafficking, even if the owner is never arrested or charged with a crime.”

    • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
      2·
      11 days ago

      I’m certain that you sold Bitcoin and paid for a house with cash. You probably used a service like RealOpen designed to make it feel like you’re doing something cool, but the end result is exactly the same unless you deliberately sought out a seller that was willing to receive Bitcoin.

      As it turns out, keeping money in the bank and never working with large amounts of cash is sufficient protection from civil asset forfeiture, as they generally can’t just take your accounts from you during a traffic stop or at airport security.